Really, I thought they couldn’t get any more ridiculous than naming Iran, a Sharia-enforcing fascist state, to the Commission on the Status of Women, but they did it. Meet the new President of the United Nations Conference on Disarmament:

Despite numerous breaches of arms embargoes and continued threats to expand its nuclear weapons program, North Korea has assumed the presidency of the United Nations Conference on Disarmament. In a speech to the 65-nation arms control forum in Geneva, the newly-appointed president, North Korean Ambassador So Se Pyong, said he was “very much committed to the Conference.”

Appointing a North Korean to chair the UN’s only multilateral disarmament forum is like “asking the fox to guard the chickens,” says Hillel Neuer, of the UN watchdog organization UN Watch. Neuer is calling on the U.S. and European governments to protest the appointment, which he says, “damages the UN’s credibility.”

When asked about the controversy over North Korea’s new leadership role, UN spokesman Farhan Haq pointed out that the head of the Conference on Disarmament is selected by the member states that sit on the conference, not the UN secretary general.

Haq added that when Secretary General Ban Ki-moon spoke at the Conference on Disarmament this January, he urged the states who sit on the conference to do more to advance its work, so that it “does not become irrelevant.”Aware that many nations see the Conference on Disarmament as a place of talk rather than a forum that does substantive work, Secretary General Ban warned: “The very credibility of this body is at risk.”

“At risk?” I’d say whatever credibility the conference still had has been taken out back and shot.

Claudia Rosett is appalled. After rattling off the serial illicit arms-dealing (including passing nuclear tech) that makes this appointment a joke, she explains the real harm this does:

Except, it isn’t harmless. It gives the lie to everything the UN pretends to stand for, and emboldens North Korea’s regime to believe that monstrous misconduct, at home and abroad, is actually no bar to a seat at the table with civilized governments. The UN promotes itself as a defender of world peace and security, a champion of human dignity. Under the banner of such promises, the UN enjoys billions in funding from the world’s leading democracies — especially the United States, which for the entire UN system foots roughly one-quarter of the bill for all 192 member states. And with the facilities thus lavished upon it, the UN then hands North Korea the presidency of its Conference on Disarmament.

Worse, scroll down past the UN press release, to the statements of member states upon the handover of this presidency to North Korea. There you can peruse the praise and good wishes for North Korea of China, Nigeria, and — yes — Portugal, whose envoy is “looking forward” to working with North Korea in coming weeks. Worse still, is what the world’s governments, including the US. administration, are not saying. Apparently, diplomatic politesse is more important than speaking out to protest the monstrosities that should be obvious here to anyone with an ounce of integrity or sense. Where’s the outrage?

Dead, I imagine, along with the pretense that the United Nations does anything worthwhile.

By the way, a couple of weeks ago the US intercepted a ship suspected of carrying contraband missile technology to the tyrants who rule Burma.

A ship from North Korea, the new President of the UN Disarmament Conference.

Memo to Congress: If you’re looking for ways to cut the budget, let me make a suggestion…

A couple of days ago I provided an example of why the United Nations is useless: while the world is beset by problems around the globe, the Secretary General came to Hollywood to lobby for movies that would serve as propaganda for the alarmist side of the global warming debate. Sure, that’s worthy of a face-palm moment, but it’s not evil.

Today, Iran officially becomes a member of the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women. Only three days ago, the U.N. General Assembly voted to suspend Libya’s membership on the U.N. Human Rights Council in a desperate bid to save the Council’s tattered reputation and itself.

But not a single state, including the United States, has indicated anything but smooth sailing for today’s membership of Iran on the U.N.’s top women’s rights body.

Yes, you read that right. A misogynistic Islamic (But I repeat myself) theocracy has been elected to an international board meant to promote the rights of half the world’s population.

The Commission on the Status of Women (hereafter referred to as “CSW” or “the Commission”) is a functional commission of the United Nations Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), dedicated exclusively to gender equality and advancement of women. It is the principal global policy-making body. Every year, representatives of Member States gather at United Nations Headquarters in New York to evaluate progress on gender equality, identify challenges, set global standards and formulate concrete policies to promote gender equality and advancement of women worldwide.

The Commission was established by ECOSOC resolution 11(II) of 21 June 1946 with the aim to prepare recommendations and reports to the Council on promoting women’s rights in political, economic, civil, social and educational fields. The Commission also makes recommendations to the Council on urgent problems requiring immediate attention in the field of women’s rights.

Emphases added.

Gee, I wonder what kind of recommendations and reports we could expect from Iran to promote the “gender equality and advancement of women?” Maybe we should look at their track record:

For the UN to agree to Iran’s membership on the Commission is beyond a joke or a farce; it is a slap in the face to all women everywhere, and especially to Iranian women, who have to suffer under this barbaric tyranny.

There are many examples to choose from, if one wishes to show why the United Nations is a waste of taxpayer money. Its record in resolving international crises is abysmal: Bosnia, anyone? And don’t get me started on its corruption by and covering for Saddam Hussein in the run-up to Gulf War II. Oh, but what about human rights, you say? Isn’t the UN set to expel Libya from the Human Rights Commission? Aside from asking why Libya was ever on anything named “Human Rights Council,” take a minute to look over its membership and then try to tell me the HRC is anything but a bad joke — on the world.

Anyway, if you want something that captures the essence of the uselessness of the United Nations, it’s this: the Secretary General, Mr. Ban-Ki Moon, has come to Hollywood to lobby the film industry to make movies about global warming:

We kid you not. As the real world seemed to be coming apart at the seams, Ban Ki-moon swept into Tinseltown during Oscar week to urge the entertainment industry to produce more movies, TV shows and music about — drumroll, please — global warming.

During a daylong forum, some 400 writers, directors, producers, agents and network executives were briefed on recent heat waves, floods, fires and droughts that have been blamed on man-made climate change.

With all that’s wrong in the world today, this feckless buffoon has gone before our cultural movers and shakers (who are all too willing to buy in) to beg for propaganda films about a problem that does not exist. But, hey, if it works and he convinces everyone to SAVE THE PLANET NOW!!!, it will mean lots of new transnational bureaucratic jobs, international conferences in swanky resorts, and even more taxpayer money funneled to, you guessed it, UN bureaucrats. What a deal! (For the UN)

Meanwhile, Libya’s collapsed into civil war against a brutal tyrant and Somali pirates are murdering travelers on the high seas — and giving money to allies of al Qaeda, a global terrorist organization. Oh, and Mexico is headed toward becoming a failed state while North Korea and Iran build nuclear weapons.

No. 7: Have you ever wondered what it might look like if the U.S. subjected itself to a peer review of its human rights record by the world’s leading violators of human rights? The UN’s got you covered, and the Obama administration is honored to be there for it.

The Human Rights Council, which is now only 40 percent democratic, created a process in 2006 by which all members submit a report on their human rights records to the review of the council every four years. This year, Obama administration representatives Esther Brimmer and Michael Posner listened as Iran, North Korea, Egypt and China, among others, lectured the United States on its human rights record and history of racial discrimination.

Don’t forget, it was at this same “peer” review that the Obama administration claimed it was fighting for human rights — by suing Arizona. Yes, an American state, a democratic republic with the rule of law, was held up for judgment to… North Korea. Sorry, that still galls me.

Anyway, be sure to read the rest of MKH’s list; some are real doozies.

When I was young, I used to be amused by the crudely-made billboards I’d see along the highways in Southern California that demanded we get out of the UN. Usually they were put up by some John Birch-affiliate, whom I would write off as a bunch of kooks.

Well, I still do think of John Birch and their conspiracy theories as lunatic (thank you, Bill Buckley, for banishing them from the conservative movement), but the sentiment of saying bye-bye to the United Nations now strikes a chord with me. A corrupt playground for dictators and tyrants, it’s also convened two of the worst antisemitic assemblies held by any national government or international agency since the Wansee conference*, “Durban I” and Durban II,” the UN “World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance.” Now they want to hold “Durban III” — in New York City.

To return to the langue diplomatique, these events are la vie a l’envers — life upside down. They are the reverse of what they pretend to be and should be labeled the “World Conference for the Promotion of Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance.” I attended Durban II in Geneva – you can see some reports here and here — and I can say personally that I have never seen anything as quite literally insane. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was the keynote speaker of a human rights conference.

The whole thing virtually broke down when several European delegates walked out on the Iranian despot in the midst of one of his predictable anti-Semitic screeds (the US, despite some equivocation, had ultimately declined to go in the first place). UN officials ran and hid from the media after this debacle and you would think they wouldn’t want to repeat such a disgrace but… here they go again with Durban III this September… and in New York, of all places.

These events (I, II and, most probably, III) are basically Festivals of Anti-Semitism, and the UN membership — a substantial portion anyway — just can’t stop themselves from doing it again. It’s pathological, really. They pay lip service to the idea the anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism, but this notion has become increasingly risible. UN attention to tiny Israel (still with under eight million population — less than L.A. county) is nearly as big as all other states combined. Why is that? By 1992 alone there were 65 resolutions concerning Israel. By January 2009, this number rose to 225. All these resolutions are largely led by Islamic states that are basically judenrein, although many of them had substantial Jewish populations in the past.

It’s a black comic moral travesty and our money is paying for it.

The first steps should be to stop this outrage from happening on American soil: official protests (Where is the State Department on this, Madame Secretary?), a denial of funds from Congress (Hello, House Republicans!), a refusal of entry into the US for any delegates, and, if need be, public protests at the conference itself.

And, once it’s held –wherever it’s held– we should walk out of the United Nations, itself; an irredeemable, farcical organization unworthy of our time, our money, and the validation our presence gives it.